Since the early 1980s, it has been widely assumed that the familiar telephone will be replaced with an information appliance that will provide both telephony and information services. The common view is that the next generation telephone will look like a conventional telephone, but hidden inside will be what amounts to a personal computer. The prototypical "miniature-PC" station set has a processor, a display, a touch screen or other cursor-control device, and a keyboard on a pullout tray. In keeping with desktop personal computers, the miniature-PC station set can be built on software platforms such as Microsoft's Windows CE or can run on a Java virtual machine.
To a user, the miniature-PC station set integrates advanced telecommunications services that before were provided with a desktop personal computer equipped with an appropriate voice/data modem and telephony software. For example, an application running in a miniature-PC station set can maintain a personal directory of telephone numbers and display this directory as a list of names on the screen of the station set. When a user desires to phone a person on this list, he selects the name from the list instead of entering the person's telephone number. The telephone directory application running in the station set determines the phone number based on the selected name, and the miniature-PC station set transmits the necessary signals to a central office to place the call. In addition to running a telephone directory application, the miniature-PC station set can log incoming and outgoing calls, screen calls based on user-defined screening lists, and facilitate basic telephony functions such as putting one caller on hold to speak to another caller. If connected to a data network, the miniature-PC station set also can provide a user with access to email, online banking, database services, and Web browsing.
To the network, the miniature-PC station set appears and acts like any other touch-tone telephone. Basic telephony functionality (e.g., touch-tone generation, call-progress tone detection, etc.) is supported by analog telephony circuits contained in the station set. A processor in the station set receives messages from this circuitry when ringing voltage is applied to the line by a central office and also is informed when a typically digital-signal-processor-based circuit detects call progress tones (such as ring back, busy, fast busy), network error tones, or human speech. The processor also can use this circuitry to generate touch-tone signals to signal the central office to make a telecommunications connection between the station set and another station set.
There are several disadvantages associated with miniature-PC station sets. The first disadvantage relates to hardware and software upgrades. Because miniature-PC station sets are built on a PC-platform, they encounter the same problem that personal computers face--hardware with a relatively short life cycle. Accordingly, upgrades to the station set require frequent and costly hardware replacement. Additionally, because each station set is independent, there is no centralized method of distributing new software applications to the station sets. Hence, new applications must be manually loaded into each station set--a process that is made even more difficult if the station set has no mass storage device or removable media.
Another disadvantage is that a user has access only to applications loaded into his individual station set. Further, because software developers must design applications in light of the station set's limited processing and storage capabilities, development of new software applications is expensive and time consuming. These applications also must be developed to co-exist with other applications in the station set as well as with basic functions built into the station set's ROM.
There is, therefore, a need for a station set and telecommunications system that will provide the user with all of the benefits of the miniature-PC station set while overcoming its disadvantages.